Why Join the GLS Program?

The GLS Program is small and selective. We accept only about 20 students each year. The size of the program allows it to adapt the program to each new class' needs and interests.

The students bond in their required small first- and second-year seminars, as well as at various social and academic functions. In addition, the second year students are available to mentor and advise newly admitted GLS participants. The Program Specifics are set forth below; our curricular requirements are intended to provide students with sufficient structure to ensure a thorough grounding in international and transnational law and practice, while providing enough flexibility to permit students to design a course of study responsive to their unique interests.

The GLS curriculum is the bedrock of the program. Upon that foundation, we encourage GLS students to build by taking advantage of the many opportunities Georgetown offers for broadening and deepening their knowledge and perspectives. Among those opportunities are the following:

Many of our GLS students enroll in one or more of Georgetown's outstanding clinics to expand their horizons, commonly electing to participate in Georgetown's Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) Clinic, where they litigate asylum cases, or in Georgetown's International Women's Human Rights Clinic, where they have traveled to Uganda and Ghana to research and advocate for human rights.

GLS students may choose to take advantage of the Semester Abroad Program. For example, one year a GLS student earned a Masters degree in Global Economic Law through Georgetown Law Center's double degree program with Sciences-Po and the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne-Panthéon) during her third year; another student studied at Leiden University while simultaneously clerking for a Judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London opened its doors in the 2008 academic year, and a number of GLS students have already taken advantage of that ground-breaking program.

GLS students often elect to take advantage of Joint Degree Programs in law and other disciplines available through Georgetown University (for example, a Masters degree in Arab Studies or in Biomedical Science Policy) or at other institutions (for example, a Masters in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and a Masters in Public Policy as part of a concurrent degree program with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard).

GLS students have been chosen as members of a number of Georgetown's many Student Law Journals, especially those that permit them to research and write on subjects related to international or transnational law, including Georgetown's Journal of International Law, Immigration Law Journal, and International Environmental Law Review.

GLS students have traveled the world and have been very successful in pursuit of moot court opportunities, including the European Law Students Association's Moot Court Competition on WTO law in Geneva, Switzerland. Other opportunities to test their advocacy skills are presented by domestic competitions, such as the Jessup International Moot Court Competition.

A number of our students have elected to work as research assistants for Georgetown professors. For example, two GLS students served as part of the team that assisted Professor Neal Katyal in his victory in the landmark Supreme Court case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

GLS students may also become involved in one of Georgetown's internationally-oriented institutes, such as the Human Rights Institute, the Institute for International Economic Law, the Center for Transnational Business and the Law, or the Center for Law and Public Health.

Many students join one or more of the many student organizations that bring together those interested in a given area of law (such as Amnesty International, the Foreign Lawyers at Georgetown, the International Arbitration Society, or the Society for International Law) or those linked through ethnic, national, or religious affiliations (such as the American-Japanese, Arab, Asian Pacific American, Korean American, Jewish, Muslim, South Asian, and Turkish student societies, alliances, and associations).

GLS Students may choose, based on their interests and availability, to attend various of the innumerable talks and conferences at the Law Center that concern international, transnational, or comparative law.